August 30, 2013

Remember here when I made the girls tooth fairies, and commented about how my mom thought their heads were too small so I'd probably have to make up for it by having the tooth fairy give the girls extra money for their teeth?

Shaun COMPLETELY agreed with the logic.

Anyway, apparently I was right all along in my reasoning, seeing as the national trend is an increase in the tooth fairy's giving per tooth. You can read the article here.

While the study by Visa found that Midwestern tooth fairies are stingiest, there is nonetheless a nationwide uptick in the money left under pillows in exchange for those precious baby teeth.

See SHAUN, you may have thought I made no sense at the time but that's just because the study hadn't been published yet.

I am fairly certain, though, that our tooth fairy will not be leaving crisp fifties. Just a hunch.

Have a wonderful and safe Labor Day, Friends! Seeing as my birthday is next week, I take it as an opportunity to adopt Labor Day weekend as my own holiday since it sometimes falls on actual Labor Day. Also logic Shaun COMPLETELY agrees with resigns himself to.

I discovered yesterday that if you enter 5 Coke Rewards
points (you have to have a Coke Rewards membership which, like any of these
things simply involves enrolling via your email address and creating a password
– free) and receive a free 8x8
Shutterfly Hardcover Photo Book – but only thru the end of the month of August!

Hurry, that offer expires soon!

*Note: this is not a paid endorsement (I wish!) – I just had
to tell you about this great deal I found!

August 26, 2013

Posted by Lori~Mur-man started pre-school this week. I CANNOT BELIEVE IT! He is now 3.5 years old! WOW!

He LOVED school! And can't wait to go back! My last few weeks have been a crazy whirlwind of work and Mur-man going to school. So glad that college has officially started, and that my first year students are checked in and settled in!

August 24, 2013

I was waiting for my Shutterfly Photo Book to arrive to do
this post – I hoped it would be in time for a Friday post, but nope, you get a
Saturday post instead.

Remember a few days ago when you got a random Photo Book
album from me (here)?Well, you probably
guessed it was done by me since it was all pictures of KD and Easy Mac. Anyway, I was able to do that directly
from Shutterfly (the blog posting) when I ordered that Photo Book.I just told them what my blog URL is
and they posted it just like that – okee-dokey.(Blogger-hosted blogs only.)

Well, I wanted to wait till the Photo Book came to tell
about it.It was ANOTHER FREE 8x8
Shutterfly album!Shaun got this
one from McDonald’s Monopoly, y’all!That makes my 4th free Photo Book using Target catalina coupons,
Coke Rewards points and other freebies!

The Photo Books are super easy to make.You can load pictures from Facebook,
Instagram and your computer.

Best of all, while I was waiting for my McDonald’s free
album to come in the mail this week, I got a catalina coupon at Target checkout
for ANOTHER FREE 8x8 Shutterfly album.What luck!I did contact
customer service at Shutterfly and asked – they will extend my coupon
expiration date since I just made a Photo Book last week.I might not do that, though, and just
make a summer album.

Photo Book + new coupon!

PS – a lot of these coupons say “for first-time Shutterfly
account-holders only” or something similar – but try the codes anyway.I betcha they’ll still work.

August 22, 2013

We went to the Minnesota Twins baseball game with my dad
last weekend – and it was the girls’ first foray into professional sports.Naturally we went all out.I made homemade hair bows, Grandpa got
them matching Twins shirts, and we made a sign to try to get them on TV as
twins at their first Twins game.

I don’t normally dress them as twins.It happens only a couple times a year
actually.I usually let them dress
themselves, and that means they look like clowns – Lori can attest to this.

But Grandpa had been dreaming of taking them to their first
game since they were wee little babies, so this was a big dog deal.In fact, when I was painfully huge
pregnant with them, we went to a game and I wore a shirt that we drew on that
said “These twins are Twins fans”.No need to point to point to my belly.It was obvious I was about to explode.If I got on TV that game, Good Lord
help us all.

So I figured if I was going to have to wrangle my children
for nine innings, I may as well try to get them on TV.So I put my cheerleading skills to
work, pulled out the colored markers (paint pens), some white tagboard, Shaun’s
sketching skills and got to work.

The key is centering what you want to highlight as your most
important words, writing things out in pencil first just to make sure you have
it right, then writing it out in marker.I find that black is almost always best, but then accenting in color is
a good way to pull out some depth.I’m no artist, but I was a darn good poster-maker back in the
cheerleading days.And we’re
talking life size posters.

I determined that I wanted “TWINS” to be the most important
centered word, and that I wanted the MN “Twins” to be in one of their logo
styles, which is where Shaun’s sketching skills came into play.“Circle Us Bert” was at the top in a
curve.He’s the announcer who does
the fan circling on TV.The rest
of the words I filled in from there.

We held the poster up at each break in the play and…never
got on TV.BFF Slags watched from
home to verify.

Oh well.

The girls were really good at the game, surprisingly, and
Grandpa couldn’t have been more thrilled to have his grandbabies on his lap at
their first Twins game, just like he’d dreamed.And, bonus, since it was kids’ day, they got to run the
bases after, so we adults got to go down on the field too.Pretty cool.Still, I’da liked to be on TV.

August 21, 2013

Posted by Lori~I am in the middle of move-in week at the college! IT'S CRAZY BUSY, BUT EXCITING!I am taking a quick trip back to my summer vacay in Devil's Lake, ND, and our quick road trip to Hampden, ND. My mom grew up on a farm there.I love my grandparent's farm (it's filled with memories). Their house has a TON OF POTENTIAL, and I would love to MOVE IT to a lake lot someday. It would be amazing!

Grandma and Grandpa's house--it has SO MUCH POTENTIAL!

My Grandpa fell off the barn roof (feet first) and broke both of his heels.

August 19, 2013

My first wom-jacking! I'm taking over wom-mom today for a short post on UNI! That's right, sea urchin. We had some friends over for sushi a little while ago and I thought I'd try my hand at the preparing the spiny little bastards for raw consumption. They were shipped live from Catalina seafood in California, and I had the (dis)pleasure of cracking them open while they were still ungulating about.

I didn't get before photos, but you get the picture. The spoons were placed back to back in the center of the belly (mouth) of these wee-beasties. Apply a little pressure and the they crack open down the middle.

There really isn't much on the inside of a sea urchin, but you have to carefully extract the Uni, egg sacs, without breaking them or bringing too much of the other parts along for the ride.

I used the spoons also to retrieve the Uni and placed the pieces in an ice bath. Gordon Ramsey would not approve of washing the Uni before eating, but each to his own.

I placed the Uni on top of little sushi battleships. A delicious delicacy. (Actually, I don't think anybody at the party really liked it - but it was a fun experience!)

According to Lori, the rest of the sushi (besides the Uni) was delicious!

August 18, 2013

First I need to apologize to you and to Ethne for being a HORRIBLE wom-mom co-author. I work at a college in my little city, ND home and am extremely busy with new students arriving.I decided to whip-up a quick dinner that could easily freeze and be ready for future lunches and dinners. This idea and recipe came courtesy of my friend and co-worker Danika.Brown hamburger with onion, and mix in spaghetti sauce.

I also recommend seasoning the beef mixture with salt and pepper. I decided to grease the muffin tin and then place the wonton wrappers (I used the egg roll size) in the muffin tin folding down the edges. Fill wonton wrappers with ricotta cheese and then add the meat mixture.

Shaun and I use those Green Pans, a gift from Thrifty
Nana.They are very nice pots and
pans, but if you burn stuff on them, it does not come off.

TN got our set from QVC, though you can get them at Target - I like not having to worry about teflon rubbing off on my food.

That is, until Shaun tried scrubbing with a Mr. Clean Magic
Eraser.So, if you have dishes you
can't get clean, try the magic eraser. It's AMAZING. All the brown, burned-on stuff just wipes off. (NOTE: Follow the directions, as I know the eraser does harm surfaces if it’s
used dry; must be used wet.)

They even make them for dishes now - and you know I like Dawn dish soap - if it's good enough for saving animals from oil spills, it's good enough to get gunk off my dishes.

August 12, 2013

Hey dudes.I
was supposed to do a real post today, but I got a cold and my whole body hurts
real bad.

Here are a few pictures instead.

See, I told you. I made Theodore get in the picture so it wouldn't be completely atrocious.

Easy Mac, not so sure of the T-Rex. KD, less afraid. Note: giant hair bow.

Despite the great green bean plant scare (here), I found these babies growing.

Thrifty Nana (my mom) has cucumbers growing - and her sweet Asian neighbor brought over more cucumbers and dill too! There is still kindness out there. Don't worry, we shared jars of pickles back last year and will again this year too.

We are WOMS!

Holy crap, you made it! We were starting to wonder. We're Lori & Ethne. We love to laugh (free exercise) and sometimes pretend we're crime reporters. You may also catch us doing a craft, cooking or trying to save money. (Not doing laundry, though. Ick.) Click on ABOUT US to learn more.